Deadly Addiction: Heroin

Fifty-two year old Frank Novajovsky heads up the local chapter of Reformers Unanimous, a faith-based recovery program at the Stedfast Baptist Church in Groton. This year, he also has been involved in a community effort to help those addicted to opioids, attending vigils and offering help and prayer.

Gov. Ned Lamont's budget recommendations for criminal justice agencies appear to follow the playbook of the previous administration, focusing on a reduction in crime, declining prison population and second chances.

MORE STORIES: Deadly Addiction: Heroin

The Early Screening and Intervention Program "gives the criminal justice system one more set of eyes to see what's going on and maybe do something about it," said New London prosecutor Michael Kennedy.

Michael "Mike Mike" Luciano was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison Tuesday for supplying street-level dealers in the New London area with heroin he obtained from sources in Rhode Island and Masachusetts.

Court documents and interviews reveal that in the last weeks of his life, Matthew Lindquist, consumed by addiction and desperate, did business with a drug dealer from Hartford whose capacity for violence he failed to recognize until it was too late.

As Connecticut residents continue to die from opioid overdoses at an alarming rate, there is some consensus in the medical community that being able to share health records electronically across the entire state would help fight the epidemic.

The city saw eight fatal overdoses in the first half of this year compared to 19 in the first half of 2017 — a number officials hope will keep dropping as they introduce new programs to fight addiction.

In addressing the passage of the bill, Gov. Malloy was on target in calling the opioid issue “a complex crisis that does not have one root cause, nor does it have simple solution.” But the legislation approved in the recent session is part of the solution.

Endangering of federal funds to treat opioid abuse signals that it's time to look for more allies. Number one should be companies profiting from the sale of opiate painkillers, as called for in Senate bill.